Katharina Nocun

Katharina Nocun heads the campaign network Campact‘s campaigns for civil rights and online issues. As a consultant at the Federation of German Consumer Organizations and editor, she examines the technological revolution’s effects on politics, the economy and society. She also contributes to the digital civil rights movement, pursuing a networked world worth living in. In 2013, she was the data retention policy coordinator for Germany’s Pirate Party.

Mona Kareem

Mona Kareem is a New York-based poet and journalist. She has published two poetry collections in the Arabic. She teaches writing courses while pursuing a Ph.D. in comparative literature. Kareem is one of the editors of Migrant-rights.org, an organization dedicated to reporting on conditions of migrant workers in the Middle East.

Dolors Reig

Dolors Reig is a social psychologist and operates the e-learning platform and blog El Caparazon. She has also been nominated for The Bobs several times. Dolors consults and organizes courses for well-known companies, universities and public bodies. Her online courses focus on topics including creativity, gamification, social media, education and online trends. She also wrote the books “Socionomy” and “Youth in the Era of Hyperconnectivity.”

Alexey Kovalev

Alexey Kovalev is a journalist, translator and media researcher. He has worked for many Russian and foreign media, including The Guardian, The New York Times, RIA Novosti and inosmi.ru, which translates articles from international media into Russian. In 2015, he founded the “Noodleremover” project, which analyzes Russian media and uncovers propaganda.

Golnaz Esfandiari

Golnaz Esfandiari is a senior correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the editor of the popular blog Persian Letters. She previously worked as the Editor-in-Chief of RFE/RL’s Persian Service Radio Farda. Her work has appeared in and has been cited by major publications, including the New Yorker, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Foreign Policy. She has also contributed to Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press report. She served as a Middle East and North Africa analyst for Freedom in the World. Golnaz was included for three years in a row in Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Twitterati list.

Abhinandan Sekhri

Abhinandan Sekhri is co-founder of news critique and current affairs portal Newslaundry.com and of Small Screen – a TV and film content production and consultancy company. He has been a reporter with India’s first private electronic news magazine – Newstrack and also reported for the Hindi bulletin Aaj Tak from 1995 to 1999. He has written two award-winning political satire shows for one of India’s largest TV networks – NDTV. Abhinandan has also worked as a camera assistant on Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding (2000). He has also designed and was part of the team that organized India’s largest right to information campaign in 2006.

Julie Owono

Julie Owono is a lawyer and the head of the Africa desk at the NGO Internet sans Frontières, which around the world promotes the Internet as a space for creation and cooperation as well as political, economic and social progress. Julie develops programs dealing with digital security for African journalists, bloggers, citizen journalists and human rights activists. She coordinated campaigns for high-speed and inexpensive Internet access for all. As a columnist for Global Voices and France 24, she writes about African and women’s issues as well as economics and innovation.

Rafida Bonya Ahmed

Rafida Bonya Ahmed is an activist and author as well as a moderator at the group blog Mukto Mona. She works as a leading director in the financial industry. Rafida is the widow of Dr. Avijit Roy, who founded Mukto Mona as the first blog platform for secular humanists in the Bengali language. Roy, a famous blogger, was killed by religious fundamentalists on February 26, 2015, in Dhaka. Rafida was also seriously injured. Following the attack, seven more bloggers, journalists and publishers were brutally murdered in 2015. These gruesome acts were committed to destroy the movement of bloggers using a journalistic voice to report on secular and scientific topics. Rafida and the Mukto Mona bloggers are determined to continue to promote freedom of expression in Bangladesh.

Maurício Santoro

Maurício Santoro is a professor of international relations in Rio de Janeiro. He earned his degree in journalism and a Ph.D. in political science. He wrote the book “Modern Dictatorship” as well as many articles and scientific publications published in Brazil and abroad. In addition to his large presence on Twitter, he also writes a column on Brazilian and international issues for the online paper “Brasil Post.”

Oksana Romaniuk

Oksana Romaniuk is a representative of Reporters Without Borders in Ukraine and heads the Kyiv Institute for Mass Information, a non-governmental organization. Protecting freedom of expression and improving citizens’ right to information have long been the focus of her work. The media expert and journalist has been involved in a number of projects dealing with journalistic standards, citizen engagement and digital security.

Alissa Wahid

Alissa Wahid is a trained family psychologist with extensive experience in community development and social movements. She has served as volunteer and professional in several civil society organization since 1990. Wahid is now then national coordinator of the GUSDURian Network Indonesia. The network comprises of more than 100 local communities and thousands of individuals in Indonesia and several cities around the world. As the head of this vast network, Wahid is involved in and supervises many kinds of social change programs. Her passion is to support the next generations of social leaders and to serve society.

Erkan Saka

Erkan Saka is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Design and Management at Istanbul’s Bilgi University. He teaches New Media Cultures and Cyber-Anthropology. He earned BA and MA degrees in the Sociology Department of Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. He received his Ph.D. in the Anthropology Department of Rice University (Houston, USA). He has been a political blogger since June 2004. He is a co-coordinator of a Citizen Journalism Training Program at Bilgi Eğitim and he coordinates and presents the TV show SosyalKafa on new media at netd.com.

Hu Yong

A professor of journalism and communication, Hu Yong is also the author of 13 books. He is also a social activist and entrepreneur as well as a translator, veteran journalist, and innovator in digital and social media.

Georgia Popplewell

Georgia Popplewell is a writer and media producer from Trinidad and Tobago. She has worked in independent media in the Caribbean and elsewhere since 1989 and has written extensively on culture, music, film and sport. In 2005, she started Caribbean Free Radio, the Caribbean’s first podcast.

Popplewell is Managing Director of Global Voices, an international community of bloggers who report on global citizen media founded at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society.